((Pollen))

((Pollen)) is a project that began in response to the InConversation exhibition that was shown at Spectrum project space, Western Australia October 9 to 24 2014. A diverse group of makers and thinkers have been investigating pollen — in particular how pollen can be interpreted in different ways in different disciplines and by utilising different perspectives.

The aim of the InConversation exhibition overall was to bring together teams of three or more collaborators. Collaborators had to be from a different discipline or profession, in an attempt to work through the difficulties of transdisciplinarity.

The ((Pollen)) project began with a mail art exchange. So far the project has generated letters (c.f. “love letters” to nonhuman worlds) and other material exchanges, as well as a short video/performance about Canola in Western Australia. Most of what we created as part of the collaboration couldn’t be included in the InConversation exhibition and plans are underway to bring the works together as a whole in 2015.

Why Pollen?

Pollen has been used extensively in palaeoclimate research. Under the microscope pollen particles are beautiful, but for many people spring is a time of great discomfort. At the same time the antihistamines used to treat hayfever are a significant element of pharmaceutical pollution of waterways. As pollen desiccates it folds inwards in spectacular ways (this allows the pollen to last longer and travel further) and this process is reversed once it is rehydrated. Combining our interests in nonhuman worlds we aim to create a meta-work about pollen.